Everyone seemed eager to burrow farther into the bowels of hell. Well, that might be overstating the response. Presently, we moved through a red door that was marked "Zone Three." Here, Zollner explained, his researchers worked with live pathogens-parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other yuckies-and he showed us a lab where a woman sat on a stool at a sort of opening in the wall. She had a mask on and her hands were covered with latex gloves. In front of her face was a plastic shield, something like a sneeze shield at a salad bar, but she wasn't handling cole slaw. Zollner said, "There is an exhaust in the opening where the pathogens are, so the risk of anything floating into the room is small."
Why," Max asked, "does she have a mask and we don't?"
"Good question," I agreed.
Zollner said, "She's much closer to the pathogen. If you want to get closer to take a look, I'll get you a mask."
"Pass," I said.
"Pass," everyone agreed.
Dr. Zollner moved closer to the woman and exchanged a few inaudible words with her. He turned, approached us, and said, "She's working on the virus that causes bluetongue disease." He thought a moment, then said, "Perhaps I got too close." He stuck out his tongue, which was actually bright blue, and looked down his nose. God in heaven… or is it the blueberry pie I had for lunch?" He laughed. We laughed. In truth, the gallows humor was wearing thin, even for me, and I have a lot of tolerance for stupid jokes.
We all left the room.
This part of the building looked less populated than Zone Two, and the people I saw looked a bit less jolly.
Zollner said, "There isn't much to see here, but if I say that, then Mr. Corey will insist on seeing every nook and cranny of the place."
"Oh, Dr. Zollner," I said, "have I given you cause to say such things about me?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, let's see every nook and cranny of the place."
I heard some groans, but Dr. Z said, "Very well, follow me." We spent the next half hour or so looking at nooks and crannies, and in truth, most of Zone Three looked the same-room after room of men and women peering through microscopes, making slides out of slime, slides from the blood and tissue of living and dead animals, and so on. Some of these people actually had their lunches with them and were eating while they played around with disgusting stuff.
We spoke to another dozen or so men and women who knew or worked with Tom and Judy, and while we were getting a more clear and more fully formed picture of their work, we didn't learn much new about their heads.
Still, I thought this was a useful exercise-I like to fix in my mind the milieu of the deceased, and later I usually think of something bright to follow up on. Sometimes, just casual chats with friends, family, and colleagues will turn up a word or two that can lead to the solution. Sometimes.
Zollner explained, "Most of these viruses and bacteria cannot cross the species barrier. You could drink a test-tube-ful of foot-and-mouth disease virus and not get much more than an upset stomach, though a cow would die from a quantity that would fit on the head or a pin.
"Why?"
"Why? Because the genetic makeup of a virus has to be able to… well, mesh with a cell to infect it. Human cells do not mesh with FMD virus."
Beth said, "But there's some evidence that Mad Cow Disease has infected humans."
"Anything is possible. That's why we're careful." He added, "Bugs bite."
Actually, bugs suck.
We went into another brightly lit room, and Zollner said, "In here we work with parasites. The worst is the screwworm. We've found a clever way to control this disease. We have discovered that the male and female screwworms only mate once in their lives, so we sterilize millions of the males with gamma rays and drop them by plane over Central America. When the male mates with the female, no offspring result. Clever, yes?"
I had to ask, "But is the female screwworm fulfilled?"
"She must be," Zollner replied. "She never mates again."
Beth offered, "There's another way to look at that."
Zollner laughed. "Yes. There is a female point of view there."
The persiflage finished, we all took turns looking at screwworm larvae under a microscope. Disgusting.
And on we went, into laboratories, and into rooms where horrible microbes and parasites were grown and stored, and into all sorts of weird places whose purposes and functions I only dimly understood. I kept in mind that my friends, Tom and Judy, walked these corridors and entered many of these rooms and labs every day. And yet, they seemed not to be depressed or anxious about any of it. At least not so I noticed.
Finally, Dr. Z said, "That's all of Zone Three. Now, once again I must ask you if you want to go farther. Zone Four is the most contaminated of all the zones, more so, actually, than Zone Five. In Five, you are always in a biohazard suit and respirator, and everything is decontaminated often. In fact, there is a separate shower for Zone Five. But Zone Four is where you will see the animal pens, the sick and dying animals, and also the incinerator and the necropsy rooms, if you wish. So, though we are clinically dealing here with animal diseases only, there may be other pathogens in the ambient environment. He added, "That means germs in the air."
Max asked, "Do we get face masks?"
"If you wish." He looked around and said, "All right. Follow me."
We approached yet another red door, this one marked "Zone rour, with the biohazard symbol. Some clown had stuck a particuarly gruesome skull-and-crossbones decal on the door-the skull was cracked and a snake slithered out of the crack and threaded itself through one of the skull's eye sockets. Also, a spider was crawling out of the grinning mouth. In fact, Dr. Zollner said, "I believe Torn is responsible for that horrible thing. The Gordons added some levity to this place."
"Right." Until they died.
Our host opened the red door, and we found ourselves in a sort of anteroom. There was a metal cart in the small room on which was a box of latex gloves and a box of paper face masks. Dr. Z said, "For anyone who wishes."
This was sort of like saying parachutes or life vests are optional. I mean, either you need the damn things or you don't.
Zollner clarified his offer. "It's not mandatory. We're going to shower out after this anyway. I personally don't bother with gloves or masks. Too cumbersome. But you may feel better with them."
I had the distinct feeling he was daring us, as in, "I always take the shortcut through the cemetery, but if you'd rather walk the long way, that's okay with me. Wimp."
I said, "This place can't be any dirtier than my bathroom."
Dr. Zollner smiled. "Most probably a lot cleaner."
Apparently no one wanted to look like a pussy by practicing good prophylaxis, which is how little bugs get us in the end, so off we went, through the second red door, and found ourselves in the same kind of gray concrete corridor as in the rest of the biocontamment zones. The difference here was that the doors were wider, and each one had a big latching handle on it. Zollner explained, "These are airlock doors."
I noticed, too, that every door had a small window, and a clipboard hung from the wall beside each one.
Dr. Zollner took us to the closest door and said, "All these rooms are pens and all have viewing windows. What you see may upset you or make your lunch unsettled. So no one has to look." He examined the clipboard hanging on the concrete wall and said, "African equine fever… " He peeked through the viewing window and said, "This guy's not bad. Just a bit listless. Take a look."
We all took turns looking at the beautiful black horse in the enclosed, prison-like room. True enough, the horse looked okay, except now and then you could see him heave as if he were having trouble breathing.